Thursday, September 06, 2007

Historic moments on Tiengemeten

Today I had the privilege to be part of a unique happening on the isle of Tiengemeten. We dugged a hole in a dyke to give the water of the Haringvliet free access to the isle... Breaking the Dutch tradition of building dykes and to make land out of water is quit a sensation for someone working on the department of Water-safety!The announcement of Dutch breaking down dykes attracted a lot of attention: National and regional press, photographers and film crews from France and Germany were present to see how the mayor of Korendijk opened the dyke.This was all what happened: for this official moment breaking down the dyke was reduced to opening a pipe in the dyke. Result: no dramatic action, no big waves rushing around, but only some water flowing through the pipe from the Haringvliet into a dugged out creek on Tiengemeten.Perhaps the official act was a bit of a disappointment for some of us: anyhow it was a perfect excuse to spent a beautiful day with the colleagues of the Department of Water, Environment and Agriculture on Tiengemeten ;-)To legitimize our presence we did our best to make our selfs useful: cleaning up the island.On every corner of the island was press interviewing dignitaries in the middle of new man-made nature. Unreal!But tomorrow all will be gone and the isle is left alone to itself. However: the silence of the past years is gone: Tiengemeten has changed in an accessible nature reserve. There is invested a lot in facilities for visitors.Tiengemeten always was a good kayak destination, here is a link to previous reports. Rounding Tiengemeten is a kayaktrip of about 20 km's. Take on the next trip some extra time to visit to isle: it's worth it!